Wisconsin’s gerrymander still lives after the U.S. Supreme Court sent a case challenging state Assembly maps back to a lower court last Monday.

In Gill v. Whitford, Wisconsin Democrats alleged that legislative maps drawn by Republicans in 2011 were so partisan that they were unconstitutional. Those maps put Democrats at such an electoral deficit that in 2012 Democrats won 52% of the aggregate vote but only 39 of 99 seats in the Assembly.

Concern over gerrymandering isn't likely to go away. As Justice Elena Kagan noted in a concurring opinion for the court’s four liberals, “Courts — and in particular this court — will again be called on to redress extreme partisan gerrymanders.”

Here’s what you need to know about redistricting, gerrymandering and how citizens can fix this problem.

What is gerrymandering?

Every 10 years, legislative and congressional district boundaries must be redrawn to account for changes in population to ensure the constitutional mandate of one person, one vote.

Gerrymandering is when politicians deliberately draw legislative boundaries to give their party an advantage at the polls — packing the opposing party into a handful of districts or cracking districts and distributing opposing voters across a large number of districts to dilute their votes. It’s a very old political trick, dating to the earliest days of the republic. Both sides do it.

But in a handful of other states, politicians have done something astonishing: They have given up that power. More on that in a moment.

Why should we care?

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Justice Kagan put it this way in her opinion: Gerrymandering produces “indifference to swing voters and their views; extreme political positioning designed to placate the party’s base and fend off primary challenges; the devaluing of negotiation and compromise; and the impossibility of reaching pragmatic, bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems.”

Dale Schultz, a retired Republican state senator who favors reform, worries about the impact on democracy.

"When you lose a state by as much as we did, and the Legislature doesn’t reflect the overall top-of-the-ticket numbers, there’s something going on there," he said. "What that does is deprive the voters of the value of their votes. And that discourages people from voting."

There are many reasons we are so politically divided. Gerrymandering is only one of those reasons. But it’s also something voters can fix. And one of the best ways to do that was devised in Iowa nearly 40 years ago.

How does the Iowa model work?

In Iowa, the moment of truth came in 1980 when a Republican-controlled state government pushed through redistricting reform. Since then, the work has been done by an arm of the state legislature. The process is fast, cheap and results in more competitive elections — and sometimes the defeat of incumbents. Wisconsin’s process offers none of these advantages.

Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency draws the maps, which have to be as equal in population as possible, respect political boundaries by trying not to divide cities and counties, be contiguous and be reasonably compact. It is a blind process that cannot favor political parties or incumbents or be used to enhance or dilute the voting strength of minority groups.

The legislature must consider the plan promptly and can only vote up or down. If lawmakers reject the initial plan, they have to explain why based on the criteria for drawing districts. The agency then submits a second plan, which the legislature also considers on an up-or-down vote. If the second plan is rejected, the agency draws up a third plan based on legislative feedback and submits it to the General Assembly. If lawmakers reject the agency's maps for a third time, only then can they devise their own set of maps. But that's never happened.

Ed Cook, a lawyer for the agency, told me earlier this year: “There generally tend to be more new legislators the election following redistricting.”

CLOSE

The "Iowa model" has long been touted by good government advocates in Wisconsin as a solution to partisan gerrymandering. But would it work anywhere but Iowa? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's David D. Haynes investigates.
Wochit

Why did Iowa Republicans agree to give up such a handy political tool?

The state was led at the time by Gov. Robert Ray, a moderate Republican governor with a reputation for bipartisanship. There also was resentment that the courts had stepped in to require a new set of maps a few years earlier, which resulted in a mess in the opinion of many in the majority, according to a 2013 white paper co-authored by longtime Iowa political observer Don Racheter. And there were backbenchers in the GOP who were as concerned as some Democrats about losing their seats to gerrymandering, Racheter wrote. Finally, there was a general feeling that it was simply the ‘right thing to do.’ ”

In an era of extreme political polarization, it’s unlikely the Republican majority in Wisconsin will take up redistricting reform unless compelled to do so by the courts or by intense public pressure.

But isn’t pressure in both arenas ratcheting up?

It is. The issue remains very much alive in the courts despite the victory lap Republicans took on Monday.

First, there is the Wisconsin case. The Supreme Court sent Gill v. Whitford back to a lower court, where Democrats will have a chance to recalibrate their arguments. At the same time, the court returned a Maryland case to the lower courts, also on procedural grounds. In that one, Republicans are challenging a congressional map drawn by Democrats.

Justices might also agree to hear arguments in a North Carolina lawsuit that accused that state’s Republican-controlled legislature of overstepping in 2016 when it redrew the state's 13 congressional districts in response to a court order. Federal judges ruled earlier this year that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.

In the court of public opinion, there also is a lot of activity. Ballot initiatives are underway in several states. In Michigan, the Voters Not Politicians campaign aims to create an independent, citizen redistricting commission, a process used effectively in Arizona and California. In those states, a commission made up of members of the public are responsible for drawing and approving the final maps.

And in Wisconsin, a frustrated public is beginning to make itself heard.

How so?

As the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism noted in a recent report, 39 of 72 Wisconsin counties have passed resolutions in support of nonpartisan redistricting. Former state senators Tim Cullen, a Democrat, and Schultz, a Republican, are spearheading a drive to achieve what they were unable to achieve while they were in office.

And there is some evidence Republicans are more open to the idea than in the past. Jon Plumer, a moderate Republican from Lodi who won a special election to fill a vacant Assembly seat earlier this month, got the endorsement of the Wisconsin State Journal, in part, because he supports redistricting reform.

“There is a lot of small ‘c’ conservative support for changing the system,” says Sachin Chheda, director of the Fair Elections Project, which Cullen and Schultz co-chair. The organization favors nonpartisan redistricting.

"Where else can you guarantee yourself a job with good pay and benefits for most of a decade simply by making one vote?" asked Schultz. "The net result is democracy is going to suffer. ... It’s a potent issue with independents."

Justice Elena Kagan: “Gerrymanders have thus become ever more extreme and durable, insulating officeholders against all but the most titanic shifts in the political tides."(Photo11: Jasper Colt, USA TODAY)

In her concurring opinion Monday, Supreme Court Justice Kagan warned that the dangers to our democracy will only grow unless something is done.

“Gerrymanders have thus become ever more extreme and durable, insulating officeholders against all but the most titanic shifts in the political tides,” she wrote. “The 2010 redistricting cycle produced some of the worst partisan gerrymanders on record. The technology will only get better, so the 2020 cycle will only get worse.”